New grower in need of help!

[crashbandicoot]

Hey there! As you can see from the title i'm a first timer and i've got some issues that need addressing, firstly my ph is off (around 7.8), i've been scouring forums for advice but in the end i just decided to make a thread to seek council from those more knowledgable than myself.

I figured out that my tap water has a ph of about 7.5 could this be the cause of my ph problem? also would watering with water that has a lower ph fix this problem?? (today i bought stuff to properly ph my water) Also i am considering working some horse manure into the surface of the soil before my next watering as i hear that this can help lower ph. Any other advice on lowering ph would great.

Anyway as you'll see in the photos my leaf tips are hooking down and theres tiny little yellowish/brown patches at the very tip also one of my leaves looks to be a bit deformed! is this a problem i should worry about? She's only 9 days old so i want to get these problems fixed before disaster strikes.

Finally i hear using filtered water is bad... is this the case?

Peace.

Already posted this in the new growers forum but i'm assuming thats the wrong place for my questions so here i am.

 

[TheLittleBoyWhoPointed]

If your soil has nutrients in it already, you are overferting it by feeding it so soon....you might need to wait until the soil nutes have been exhausted before adding nutes...
you should if possible adjust your water to ph 6.5 ....this is generally the optimum ph for most plants in soil...but your mileage may vary from plant to plant.

To get your soil back to ph 6.5 one has to flush it [water it] with 2X-3X the volume of the pot....testing the runoff....[the water that comes from the bottom of the pot after it has passed through] , is the best way to tell if you have a ph problem...

LB

 

[crashbandicoot]

So my plan of action should be to give it a flush with ph'd water? I'm worried about doing her some damage... is aquarium ph stuff ok to use?

 

[happily]

Should be fine

 

[ruderalis-roy]

I agree looks like a bit of burn to me mate doesnt look too serious tho id follow thelittleboywhopointeds advice if i were u ;-) sounds about right to me. Good luck on ur first grow dude maybe start a grow diary for us all to follow? What strain is it?

 

[Muddy]

The high pH of your water is certainly a contributing factor but I suspect your soil pH was too high to start with. What kind of soil is it and did you amend it with anything, manure, castings, etc? Does it contain any dolomite lime and if not, did you add any?

 

[crashbandicoot]

Its 50/50 peat moss/miracle grow compost (contains 40-70% peat) with with a large cup of vermiculite and perlite, didn't add any dolomite lime but i'm guessing i should have...
cheers for the reply

 

[Muddy]

Well, the Miracle Grow soil is a big problem. The slow release nutrients they contain can really screw a grow up. Those look young enough that they could be transplanted into something more suitable. It's going to be very difficult to get your pH down to a reasonable level, around 6.5. You will need to flush them well with at least 3 times your pot size of pH balanced water. So if your pots are 3 gallon, that's 9 gallons of water. You'll also need some dolomite lime. If you can find powdered, just add it to the last gallon of the flush. If all you find are pellets, crush them best you can and mix them into the top layer of soil before you give than last gallon. Running all that water through the pots is going to stress the plants and likely stunt them. That's why I think it would be more advisable to just transplant them into some good soil like Pro Mix, Sunshine #4, BioBizz Lite, or something else without the slow release nutes.

 

[crashbandicoot]

Right thanks everyone for all the advice will be attempting transplant tomorrow... although i started in a large pot so i didn't have to transplant which is gonna make things more difficult. Once again any tips would be very much appreciated... Fingers crossed all will go ok!
Also will be starting a grow diary for those who are interested; strain is Auto Fast haze from AC Genetics.
Wish me luck!